Is Israel the new litmus test for Democrats?

In 2024, roughly 100,000 Michigan Democrats frustrated with the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza voted “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary. The protest quickly spread to primaries across the country, like North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, exposing how deeply Israel had become a flashpoint within the Democratic Party.

Two years later, the debate is back in Michigan. On August 4, Democrats will choose their Senate nominee in one of the most contentious primary battles between Rep. Haley Stevens, a centrist Democrat backed by the party establishment, and Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and its affiliated groups have spent roughly $30 million backing Stevens – their biggest investment ever in a single race. El-Sayed has made that spending a central campaign issue, arguing it would influence Stevens’ decisions in the Senate, which Stevens denies. El-Sayed also campaigned on opposing US military aid for Israel, which he referred to as a “rogue state,” and arguing the money should instead be spent at home. Recent polls show El-Sayed extending what was once a narrow lead over Stevens this month.

Michigan isn’t the only place where Israel has become a defining issue in Democratic primaries. From New York to California, candidates are increasingly being asked to stake out positions on the US-Israel relationship. That has led some observers to argue the issue is becoming a new “litmus test” for Democrats, according to Columbia University professor Lincoln Mitchell.

That debate is reflected at the national level. A Pew poll this year found only 32% of Americans hold a favorable view of the Israeli government, down nine percentage points since 2019. The decline is even steeper among Democrats: just 16% said they view the Israeli government favorably – a 19 percentage-point decline since 2022, triggered by humanitarian concerns over the war in Gaza and punctuated now by the war in Iran.

The issue resonates with Democratic voters for a reason. “[The] Middle East broadly is something that matters quite a bit for primary voters, especially in states where there are large, directly interested populations on either side of the issue,” said Clayton Allen, Eurasia Group’s US politics expert.

New York offers one of the clearest examples. In the state’s 10th congressional district, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a close ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, ousted incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in June’s primary. New York has both a large Jewish population – 12% of the city's total population – and an active progressive base that was sharply critical of Israel during the Gaza war. Both candidates are Jewish, but they diverged sharply over Gaza: Lander deemed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide, while Goldman did not. In the end, Lander won by 32 percentage points.

A similar dynamic played out in Colorado and California. In Colorado, which doesn’t have a large Jewish or Arab population, Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in June after campaigning as a vocal critic of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. In California, state Sen. Scott Wiener, a moderate running for retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat, advanced in the June primary only after facing pressure to declare that he believed Israel committed a genocide in Gaza.

Underpinning all of this is a stark generational divide, according to Allen. Younger voters are far less supportive of interventionist US foreign policy compared to older Democrats raised on an established US-Israel alliance. Even before the Iran war, the generational gap on US foreign policy was pronounced: in a 2025 poll, 39% of adults ages 18 to 29 said it was extremely or very important that the US play an active role in world affairs, compared to 73% of those 65 and older.

“When you look at younger voters within both party systems, they have a lower baseline level of support for Israel, and that’s not being anti-Israel,” Allen said. “It's that they are shifting in their views of emergency foreign policy, the role that the US should play in the world, the necessity of military support, military intervention.”

Still, Allen cautions against reading too much into a handful of high-profile primaries.

While a new wave of progressive candidates focused on Middle East foreign policy is mobilizing voters now, it may not be the animating force headed into the presidential elections, he says. When Americans are asked what they want congressional candidates to talk about, the economy ranks ahead of foreign policy by a margin of 25 percentage points.

But, for now, as Michigan voters prepare to cast their ballots, the results will be a strong test of which wing of the Democratic Party, and its views on Israel, holds momentum.